Maybe I'm Amazed...

...At The Way I Speak French, Despite Years of Lessons

“On a vu souvent

Rejaillir le feu

D'un ancien volcan

Qu'on croyait trop vieux.” *

Ne Me Quitte Pas, Jacques Brel

I love learning. This was demonstrated by my choice of a 'weird' range of subjects for A-level. Physics, maths and French. The language was a struggle. I didn't too well at the Irish equivalent, Junior Cert., and really I was way off the standard required.

To shore up the chasm, I hired a tutor. We did all the usual, but really it was just school again. I had imagined that learning would be fun. It wasn't. It was painful, scary, boring, time seemed to slow down and worst of all, it was boring. Despite tuition, I got a D at A-level, and my 6 week working holiday (before university), in France revealed how little I knew.

"There is no such thing as a bad student, only a bad teacher."

I thirsted for an exciting way to learn. One day, I happened to catch a documentary on BBC2. It was about a 'Language Master', Michel Thomas, who claimed to be able to teach a foreign language, such as French, German or Spanish, in its entirety and, produce fluency and confidence in just 3 days' tuition. Not only that, he had taught film-stars and royalty, and even Woody Allen was interviewed explaining how brilliant it all was.

The documentary maker put this to the test by inviting Michel to teach a bunch of post-16 GCSE failures. He was given a week. The result? By the end of the week, not only had their confidence soared to new levels, they were excited at their experience, and they were gushing in their praise for this guru of teaching.

Michel very briefly outlined his method – as he was paranoid about losing it. And in those two minutes, I learnt more grammar than I had in 2 years. So I was amazed by this, but saddened to discover that his fee was a little more than I could cover, age 19. It was $25,000.

Fortunately for me, and many others, Michel released his course in 2001 for a more affordable £60. I did the French course in a week myself. It consisted of 8 CDs and you were effectively a student in the group he was teaching. You just had to pause the recording after every question. That was it! No memorising, mental review, notes, tests or pressure.

There were many 'penny-drop' moments, but mainly I remember laughing out loud at the joy of understanding and producing French. That year at uni, I enrolled for a French course. My tutor was hesitant, as “you've not done French since A-level, and your grade...”. So I offered a compromise – I'll try it for 2 weeks, if I'm not keeping up, I'll do something less taxing. I mentioned I had done some revision...but kept it quiet about what it was!

2 weeks in, my French tutor asked “How many years again has it been since you did French?” and that was that. Her face showed disbelief it had been four years before.

A few months later, I visited France to meet a friend. I found myself playing football in Perpignan, and it was terrific to be able to understand the other players, and receive compliments like "bien-joué".

While there, I popped to Barcelona. I discovered, belatedly, I didn't know a word of Spanish. So I went back home, took Michel's Spanish course, and a month later this time, I spoke Spanish. I went back, and I was greeted as if I was a native. I could ask for what I wanted and say whatever I liked really! It was great.

What Michel did was make me believe that anything was possible. I had seen it for myself. I practically failed at traditional learning, but with a different approach, I could achieve amazing progress. Anyone could.

"In the space of two days, I learnt more than in six years at O-Level."  

BBC journalist on a radio documentary

At the same time as this was going on, I was enduring a hard time trying to understand my maths lecturers. I had finally just figured out maths for myself, and I discovered that I actually liked it. I had discovered another source of subversion, a teacher called Sylvanus P. Thompson, who wrote an excellent maths book. It was from that, and being inspired by Michel, that I thought of tutoring myself, and of course, doing it in a revolutionary way.

Michel believed that the teacher should make himself redundant. The responsibility for the learning was with the teacher, not with the student. How much anxiety does that remove? However, learning would become so enjoyable and easy, that after several hours, confidence and understanding was such that it becomes clear that a teacher is no longer required. Quite the opposite of traditional teaching!

One criticism I had of the course was that the languages he had chosen, were, with retrospect, now he had explained them, very easy. What about exotic languages, like Chinese, or Arabic? How would he teach those? Unfortunately, we never found out, as he died in 2005. However, his publishers approached professional acquaintances of Michel, such as Harold Goodman, and asked them about this. Could Harold do Mandarin?

In 2008, I stumbled on Harold's publication. I was so excited. My personal criticism of Michel had been rebuked. I decided to set myself a ludicrous challenge. Could I learn a language that was totally alien to me, in a month, without notes, and in fact, without being still? I decided I would only listen to it in the car. I had a couple of trips coming up...it would give me time.

To test it worked, I met up with some Chinese friends and asked them how long it would take me to learn Mandarin from scratch. They replied, “Six months, for four hours a day, then you may be able to speak it.”

Knowing the acceleration of Michel's courses, I invited them round for tea in a month, and started the next day.

Within a few weeks, I had done the 'Foundation' course, and was halfway through the 'Advanced'. In one of those moments of serendipity, I bumped into another Chinese friend. We got chatting, she asking me questions in English (naturally), and me replying in Chinese. She knew something was up after she asked 'Wow, why have you decided to learn Chinese?” and I replied “Because I have Chinese friends, and I want to speak to them” in Chinese! I'll never forget her face after I answered her next question.  She nearly fell over when she asked - “How long have you been learning Chinese for?”. Three weeks.

My friends came around. By the end of the evening, I had scared my partner to death and discovered that I had a Beijing accent.

I approach everything in the same way now. I started learning the piano in 2005. After a year or so of 'traditional' teaching, I, of course, thought there must be an inside track. I wondered how a friend of mine could play any instrument by ear... couldn't I do that? The traditional technique seems to be all about being robotic. Slavishly following sheet music, and being unable to improvise. I noticed that pop and rock stars don't seem to have sheet music in front of them. What was going on?

I took the same approach and tried to find a teacher who could expain it á la Michel. There isn't one. But I figured it out as best I could myself. And, without any formal lessons since 2006, I have been described as a 'musician', with 'natural talent'.  That has given me the confidence to upload my first video to YouTube... ahem, cough.

"What you know, you don't forget."

So, the next challenge is the marathon. 

I only have one language qualification. The aforementioned A-level in French fifteen years ago. So...I'm going to prove that Michel's method works. I'm going to enter nine, yes nine, 9(!) International GCSEs over the next eighteen, or so, months. I'm going to be taking:

IGCSE

French

Spanish

Italian

German

Portuguese

Arabic

Mandarin Chinese

Japanese

Russian

between now and June 2014.

Hence the quote from Jacques Brel.  I may be 34, but...

Anything Is Possible.

*One has often seen

Flames light anew

From a dormant volcano

Thought too old